


Winter Come Early

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [86]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Domestic, M/M, Post- US Civil War, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 22:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15325608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Captain Rogers and Lieutenant Barnes build a new life after the war.





	Winter Come Early

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Domestic. Prompt from this generator.

The last of the daylight clung to the scrub trees at the far end of the horizon. The air smelled like dust, the baked smell of hot clay. It was summer, the tail end of it, and the plains seems determined to cling to that notion, no matter how close the snows were getting; another month, Bucky knew, and the nights would be cold enough to require a fire straight through supper and a second, scratchy blanket on the bed.

Steve would like it, though. Any excuse to linger in the mornings, to press his chilled face to the warm spread of Bucky’s back and mumble sweet nonsense about how the cows could feed themselves, surely, and wasn’t there enough water from last night left over so he didn’t have to trudge out to the pump? And when that didn’t work, when Bucky tried half-hearted to grumble and shake him off, Steve would play dirty, sometimes; slide a hand around Bucky’s hip and give him something nicer to think about than the cold, quiet world outside.

Bucky leaned his head again the porch post and stared out at the approaching darkness, the far-away lights in the sky. Inside, he could hear Steve banging pots, rousting dinner from the fireplace and whistling to himself while he did it, like he always did: enthusiastic but kinda off-key. The smell of salt pork and spuds snuck out under the door, through the half-open window, and Bucky’s stomach growled reflexively in response. He laughed at himself, rubbed a hand over his clean undershirt and tried to quiet the thing down. Yeah, it’d been a hell of a long time since lunch, since they’d stopped out under a tree in one of the far pastures, near down from a broken fence they’d been fighting, and wolfed down cornbread and last night’s cold fried potatoes. He’d gotten spoiled, living out here. Lord knew there were long stretches of his life when he’d gone a couple of days without food, sometimes more; now, more than 12 hours, and his body got its feathers in a bunch. Yeah, he thought, swinging an arm around the post, he was good and spoiled now. Food in his belly and a ranch of their own and Steve at his side, always. Always.

“You done directing the sunset?” Steve’s face was at the window, his cheeks flushed with the heat. “‘Cause if not, Sonny and me might just eat your half of this.”

“Aw,” Bucky said, turning around with a grin, “you two wouldn’t dare.”

Steve looked down, came back with an eyebrow. “I don’t know, Buck. I wouldn’t risk it. Sonny looks awful determined, don’t you, boy?”

“‘S nice out,” Bucky said. “Why don’t you bring it here? Sit next to me on the stoop and tell me how hard you worked to make sure I was fed.”

Steve laughed, the sound that Bucky loved near on dearest in the world. “Alright. Dust a step off for me and we’ll be out in a minute.”

They lingered on the porch a long time, long after their plates were empty and the dog had licked them clean. Sonny stretched out in the dust, his belly bent up towards the sky, and they talked about the day behind, the work that lay ahead, about the unhappy Confederates Steve had run into last week in town. Seven days it’d been, nearly, and he was still shook about it.

Bucky stretched a hand over his knee. “The war’s over, baby. Long since. Dead and gone.”

Steve sighed. “Not to these men. I don’t think they’ll ever surrender. Oh, they may have laid down their weapons in the hills of Virginia, but they won’t hesitate to use their new ones against any and everybody who rankles their bones.”

“They don’t know you was Union.”

“I wasn’t worried about me. I still ain’t.” He tipped his shoulder into Bucky’s. “It’s the country I’m worried about. I wonder if those men in Washington get it: how fragile it is, this union of ours. Like an eggshell made out of ice.”

Bucky let that sit for a moment. Weighed his next words on his tongue. “You wanna go back?”

“Hmmm?”

“We can let all this go, you know. Pack up every last stitch, sell the herd, ride on back east. We can do that, baby. If that’s what you want.”

Steve’s arm slipped through his, squeezed. “I’m not gonna lie; I’ve thought about it.”

“No doubt.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot.”

Bucky’s gut started to run cold, like winter come early. Thinking about it was one thing--that was Steve’s way, to worry; to be sure that if only he was back in the fight, wherever the fight was now, all would be well. It was the same instinct that had sent him running to answer Mr. Lincoln’s call after Fort Sumter, that’d pushed him from private to captain in less that three years’ time. The very same that had sent him leaping in front of Bucky outside of Atlanta and taking a minie ball to the side. Steve had nearly died for the Union, had spent months wracked with pain, and as far as Bucky was concerned, America didn’t deserve any more of him, no matter how rickety her growing bones.

It wasn’t as easy for Steve to let go, though, and Bucky understood that. But what they’d made together out here, on the edge of the Western frontier--surely Steve wouldn’t be eager to set all that aside over a handful of ill-mannered Rebs, would he?

“‘And every time I’ve considered it,” Steve said finally, “the answer I’ve come to has always been the same.”

“Yeah?” Bucky said, trying to keep his voice light. “And what’s that been, then?”

Steve’s head turned, his nose brushing warm over Bucky’s cheek. “You, Buck. You’re the answer. We worked hard to find this, you and me, didn’t we? How long did we dance around each other, huh? Three years, maybe? Four?”

“You had to try and kill yourself for me,” Bucky said, rough, “before I was brave enough to do anything about it. The whole flurry of shit that you made me feel.”

Steve chuckled. “You just wanted me flat on my back, Lieutenant, before’n you stuck up your courage.”

Bucky closed his eyes; behind the lids, though, he still could see stars. “I didn’t mean to kiss you that night. Honest. I just came to pay my respects.”

“In the middle of the night,” Steve said. “When all the nurses were catching some shut eye. Your respects had to be paid right then, huh?”

“I thought you were gonna die, that you were two shakes from it. You know that. I had to--all I meant to do was hold your hand or something and say thanks. Not my fault you weren’t as pitiful as all that. Not my fault that you were awake. Not my fault that you looked straight up at me and said--”

“Well,” Steve murmured like he had then, like making the words kind of hurt, “lookee here. If it’s not our own Barnes. Where the hell have you been, Bucky?”

Bucky reached up and caught Steve’s face in his hand, turned their mouths towards each other’s. “You’d never called me Bucky before. Only _Lieutenant_ or _Barnes_ or if I was lucky,  _hey you_.”

Steve made a soft, hot sound, and Bucky could feel the pound of his heart, the way Bucky’s own was pushing back. “Always thought of you that way. Was so envious of the men, the easy way they had with you, that you had with them. And I wanted--”

Bucky brushed Steve’s lips with a kiss, a butterfly’s brush. “What’d you want, Captain?”

“You know what.” Steve’s fingers wound around Bucky’s wrist, held on to him tight. “The thing I still wake up everyday aching for. For you to look at me and see how much I love you and stare at me like that, right back.”


End file.
